Bench & Bar September/October 2026

COLUMNS

Cardinal Intelligence innovator advances law education and workforce applications By Holly Hinson

What do you say to people who believe using AI is “cheating”?

UofL faculty member Susan Tanner is a Cardinal Intelligence changemaker, advancing solutions that drive meaningful impact. For more than a decade, the Brandeis School of Law associate professor has explored the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI), helping guide law students and legal educators in its responsible use while maintaining high ethical standards. A sought-after thought leader and speaker on AI and legal ethics, Tanner was featured in Google’s Portraits of AI. She also was awarded the Ascending Star Fellowship in 2025 and recognized for her pioneering work developing AI toolkits for law professors. Tanner spoke about the growing influence of AI and her work with educators, students and legal doctrine. What AI applications do you use with your law students and for your own work? Tanner: For students,

The course also addresses how to use generative AI responsibly. AI competence is not simply knowing what prompt to type. It is understanding how to use the technology critically while continuing to do the legal thinking yourself. As an early adopter of this technology, how do you see your role now in the world of AI? Tanner: AI is not just a new tool that suddenly appeared. Long before generative AI became widely discussed, I was working with language data, computational methods, privacy issues and technology-related questions. My role is often translating between communities: legal doctrine, legal education, language technology and the practical challenges lawyers face. I am interested not only in what these tools can do, but also in how language makes them appear more authoritative than they are, how people decide whether to trust them and how lawyers and students should evaluate them. Tanner: For students, one of the biggest benefits is increased opportunities for independent learning. AI can help them quiz themselves, test their understanding, ask for feedback, practice explaining rules and work through hypotheticals. For lawyers, AI can reduce some of the friction around routine professional tasks. It can help organize information, summarize material, create tables, format ideas and identify questions that still need answers. At the same time, I am concerned that if organizations expect people to produce more work faster with fewer resources, AI may not make work easier – it may simply increase pressure. The future of work will depend on whether we use AI to support human judgment and creativity or simply to demand more output from people. What do you see as the biggest benefits AI could bring to the study and practice of law?

Tanner: It can be. If students use AI to outsource thinking, they are cheating themselves out of an education. They may produce something that looks polished, but they have not developed the reasoning, judgment or skills the assignment was designed to teach. The better question is not, “Did you use AI?” but “How did you use it?” Did it help you learn, practice, revise and understand? Or did it replace your thinking? For faculty, I think the conversation should move beyond whether AI is allowed or banned. The more important questions are: What are we trying to teach? What do students need to learn? When does AI support that learning, and when does it get in the way? The AI toolkit I developed helps faculty and administrators think through those questions more concretely. I also worry about students skipping productive struggle. Students need to wrestle with cases, rules, facts, uncertainty and revision. AI can support that process, but it also can short-circuit it. You are now teaching an AI and the Law class. How will this class prepare law students for the road ahead? Tanner: The course focuses primarily on the law of AI and the doctrine developing around it, including privacy, discrimination, employment, intellectual property, torts, constitutional issues, legal ethics and platform governance. I enjoy teaching this class because students learn how to adapt to evolving law. They see law being made in real time through new statutes, regulatory guidance and emerging case law that does not always fit neatly into existing categories. That is valuable preparation because lawyers increasingly must advise clients in areas where both the technology and the law are changing.

I show them how to create and use bots that quiz them effectively. Instead of asking AI for answers, they can use it to challenge their reasoning, identify gaps and help them practice explaining legal doctrines or

Susan Tanner

arguments. AI also can simulate judges, supervising attorneys or clients, giving students more opportunities to practice oral arguments and professional communication.

Used that way, AI does not replace the work; it gives students more chances to do the work.

For myself, I use AI to organize ideas, move material from one format to another, draft a first pass, create tables or help identify areas that need more thought. But I do not treat it as an authority. I remain responsible for the judgment, accuracy and final product.

22 september/october 2026